The Disappearance of Paint Pots and Culture

An article I wrote about the decline in creativity production...

Hearing other students ramble about their GCSE or A Level choices, there seems to be a distinct lack of one crucial colour in the paint pot: creative subjects.

While everyone is taking up maths, further maths, chemistry (and maybe history, if you’re lucky), what is happening to drama, art and music? Are these classrooms virtually empty? Do they even exist? Maybe not.

But, what is creativity and unique thinking? What needs to be established is that creativity isn’t just writing, or drawing or crafting. Well, it can be. But the definition of creativity is ‘the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness’ (According to the Oxford Dictionary). Therefore, with creativity shrinking, we are losing the ability to think of new ways around problems, or engage with new perspectives and not just how to write an expressive essay. And so, without creativity, regression is imminent.

In a recent report, the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Values told of how, between 2003 and 2013, there was a ‘50% decrease in GCSE entries for design technology.’ This was also followed by a ‘23% decrease in drama entries’, as well as a further ‘25% decrease’ in other creative subjects, including crafts.

Why are more and more adolescents drifting away from a sector creating 1.5 million jobs and adding £70 billion to the economy?

It portrays that from younger and younger ages, the teachers, the government – heck, even our own parents – are enforcing that ‘art won’t help you in later life!’ or ‘why pick drama when everyone wants maths?’

Well, creative subjects are sought after, according to many employers, highlighted by The Curve Group, whom specialise in finance and business sectors. They concluded that ‘employees with art degrees have developed more quickly in their roles from the start’, compared to people without. Moreover, art-degree potential-employees have been found to have more ‘discipline, confidence and accept criticism’ more readily, which is what every employer wants. Problem solving, time management, commitment, communication and independence are what is demanded by creative subjects and is performed without even being noticed.

However, it all needs to be practiced.

Because, as the take-up of creative subjects diminishes, so does our individual creativity.

In 2010, Kyung Hee Kim, a creative researcher in the College of William and Mary, conducted over 300,000 creativity tests, spanning back to the 1970s. He concluded that since 1990, children have become ‘less able to produce unique and unusual ideas’. And, this is not because the creative ideas pool has simply run dry, but rather we are not nurturing creativity. It is in our nature to be creative (think back to cavemen and their impressionist paintings), but without encouragement, the flowers that grow won’t be nearly as beautiful as what they could have been. And therefore, we tend our saplings to become dull and grey and boring.

And, while some need certain subjects to become the next doctors, dentists and lawyers (or some actually insist on being dull and grey and boring), why are we deterring so many others from doing what they actually love? If creativity is not encouraged in schools, where else will the next artists, writers and designers discover their talents? Or will they simply be told that something ‘more academic’ will be better suited?

It could be argued that creativity can simply find different outlets if it is cauterised in one area. For example, builders are not typically reserved as creative individuals. Yet, they do delve into alternative ways around problems, as well as involving communication and innovation. They are ‘thinking and then producing’ and therefore are creative. Everyone can be. But, this can all be derived from the creativity they were exposed to at school – even if it were until they ceased to be compulsory, such as at the beginning of secondary school. Creativity ‘requires a certain degree of both general knowledge and field-specific knowledge’, according to the Iowa State University, in Defining Creativity. And this ‘general knowledge’ is all gained from school, the pinnacle place of learning. Not just the educational aspect of school, but the experiences gained with the people you are surrounded by. You are taking experiences from others to craft something new. That is creativity and therefore without the inspired nudge from schools, careers may not be fulfilled as well; if builders are not nurtured with creativity, how will they become as diversely exposed to problem solving and innovation?

Without creative subjects, we cease to know about culture and, in a world already filled with closed-mindedness and ignorance, why do some feel these lessons need to be revoked? We may be getting an extra maths lesson, but why does that matter when social skills are non-existent? And why are kids still being pressured to take subjects they despise and know they will never use, in order not to be laughed at when discussing their degrees?

So if you want, I urge you to take that art/drama/music/creative writing course you’ve been eyeing up and actually enjoy yourself. Because, how many people can be expressive with Pythagoras theorem?